Lloyd Kahn is the editor-in-chiefof Shelter Publications, an independent California publisher.Shelter Publications specializes in books on buildingand architecture,as well as health and fitness.Lloyds latest book is Small Homes: The Right Size.For more info, see: www.shelterpub.comLloyd Kahn is the editor-in-chief of Shelter Publications, an independent California publisher. Shelter Publications specializes in books on building and architecture, as well as health and fitness. Lloyd’s latest book is Small Homes: The Right Size.For more info, see: www.shelterpub.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/lloydkahn

It's sponsored by Pt. Reyes Books and will be at 7:30 PM, Friday November 7th at the Presbyterian church in Pt. Reyes. I'll also be talking about my early years in building and publishing, and passing out copies of our Tiny Homes on the Move mini-book (2" x 2").

Actually 2 days before the full moon, but it was bright last night. I headed out on my usual Tuesday night solo run—well, vigorous hike is more like it. Beach beautiful, with a 100-foot long glistening inland pond in moonlight, no one there, I had one of those almost chilling moments, surrounded by such beauty, alone, waves breaking, negative ions up the kazoo, super energizing of chi…

I started out in a down parka and gloves, brrrr…I don't feel like going out into the cold night, but as always, the heart likes to pump, and pretty soon I take off the parka and gloves and climb the hills in a t-shirt. Circulation, circulation, circulation…

As I came back down into the valley, a coyote startled me. It was so close, and so beautiful. There were 2 of them close by and another at a distance. They were singing. Totally. One did a yodel, starting high, then breaking voice down to lower sustained note. Then a distant coyote would respond. Oh my!

I heard this about Australian aborigines: the smoke signals don't contain the message. Rather, they're a notice to a group maybe a few miles away to tune into psychic forces and get a telepathic message. Wow!

"The skulls on display in the Academy's 4,000-square-foot second-floor Forum Theater and Gallery range from an enormous African bull elephant to a tiny bat, from frogs and fish to giraffes and walruses. There are interactive displays that simulate the vision of predator and prey, and allow visitors to be hands-on with cast skulls. Another part of the exhibit shows live dermestid beetle larvae cleaning delicate bones (the larvae can scour the flesh of a small skull in three days). And there is an interactive 3-D display developed by Google that allows visitors to view skulls from various angles.
"A skull provides important information about a species' evolution and reveals secrets about that individual animal's life," said Moe Flannery, collections manager of ornithology and mammalogy at the academy.
Walking through the exhibit, Flannery added, "By searching for clues written in the bone, we can follow the story of an animal's life, from birth to old age. We can learn what the animal ate, how it defended itself, communicated, interacted with its environment, and often how it died - all by looking at its skull.…"
-SFGate

400 sea lion skulls mounted here are "…only a fraction of those in storage…"

Louie and I went over in the morning, went to the Cliff House Bistro at the beach. got a couple of Irish Coffees at the bar, then a great breakfast sitting at an ocean-view table AND the surf was big. There were maybe 50 surfers out, peaks everywhere, and everyone was getting rides. "We're in 'em," said Louie as breakfast was served, a salmon fishermen's expression for being in the midst of a school of salmon.

We went into the unique vintage camera obscura (anyone see "Tim's Vermeer" documentary?), then to the Academy of Sciences in the park to see the spectacular "Skulls" exhibit, then dinner that night at Camino, the wood-fired restaurant in Oakland. For desert we stopped at Mel's on Lombard, split an, ahem, chocolate malt, and played Otis Redding on the juke box. We're so bad.

Michael "Bug" Deakin grew up in British Columbia, one of 10 kids in the family. He built his first house in 1970 out of used materials and these days runs Heritage Salvage, a large yard in Petaluma, Calif., filled with hand-hewed beams, flooring, barn doors, and all kinds of salvaged building materials. I love roaming around his yard. There are treasures there, as there are in this book.

He's an irrepressibly dynamic, cheerful, funny guy (disclaimer: I know him) and this is a scrapbook of his colorful world and history. There are stories: building homes, gardens, furniture and movie sets (including for McCabe and Mrs. Miller), planting trees, tearing down old buildings all over America, a touching (and happy) tale of first meeting his daughter when she was 40 and their immediate rapport, of hanging out with Tom Waite…

Deek is the artist/author of Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts: And Whatever The Heck Else We Could Squeeze In Here, prolific designer, builder, video maker, media prankster, musician, and has been featured in our books Tiny Homes as well as Tiny Homes on the Move.http://relaxshacks.blogspot.com/